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About Me
I am Russell Hallett, 50 years old, 5'10" tall and weight in at 14st 9lbs (or 93 kilos if you are of the new school).
Engineering is my trade serving my apprenticeship at Westland Helicopters in Yeovil, Somerset, finishing in 1979 as a toolmaker.
After 5 years in and around Leicester, and a 2 year second innings at Westland I went self employed in 1986 running a metal heat treatment business.
Due to circumstances I ceased trading in 2006 and in 2007 became a business development manager for one of the countries biggest heat treatment companies.
That lasted 2 years to January 2009.
Now what am I going to do? A newly qualified marketeer but with no experience. To get a reasonable income you have to stick with what you know. Engineering - but thats taken another battering in recent times! Get into marketing engineering? That would work - but sales and marketing is one of the first departments to get hit in a business downturn.
No, lets do something completely different.
As you can see in my very brief resume there is NO mention of sailing!!
So here I am on the eve of a life changing adventure. Sail round the world. See some fantastic sights. Meet a whole load of different people. Take myself well out of my comfort zone. Where is this going to lead in the next chapter of my life........................
The Race
The Clipper 09-10 Race is a ten-month event during which the fleet of ten identical racing yachts will cross all the world's major oceans and visit ports on six continents during the 35,000-mile race around the planet.
Ten months, 35,000 miles of ocean racing and around 400 people facing the challenge of a lifetime. When the starting gun goes off for the Clipper 09-10 Round the World Yacht Race on 13 September 2009 the fleet of ten sleek, stripped down 68-foot yachts will embark on a full circumnavigation of the globe.
Setting off from the Humber on the north east coast of England, it will be almost a year before they return.
Their jubilant arrival home in July 2010 will mark the end of an epic challenge: taking on the elements and becoming one of the world's elite - a global ocean racer.
Latest From The Blog
Delivery and 1st race to La Rochelle
at in La Rochelle on the Bay of Biscay after leaving Hull last unday so to get you all to date with the last couple of weeks here is the events so far: After a few days of boat preperation during the last few days of August where we could fit and change and check things on the boat and store all the provisions for the sail down to Rio (about 30 days sailing away with food and toilet paper enough for 19 people ) thats a lot of food! We had a fantastic departure from Gosport on Bank Holiday Monday 31/08. Many thousands of people turned up to see us off after all 10 teams were presented to the waiting crowds to music and national flags with ours being the tars and tripes. Due to a forcasted storm in the English Channel we were told to sail to Brighton and wait there all Tuesday then sail on Wed morning to Grimsby for Thursday afternoon arrival. Wednesday morning was ok along the C ... Read more
Posted on 2009-09-21 16:55:00
1st Part C ,
Our boat, our skipper and some of our crew! Now it's all coming together.
Early start on Tuesday 23rd June, so the suggestion was to get to the boat on Monday evening. Small crew this week, only 8 including our skipper. This is going to be fun as we are all going to have to do everything!
For our crew we had 3 Americans, Donna, Taylor and Todd, a German, Guido and 3 Brits, Elaine, Graham and myself. Taylor and Todd got sent out to go shopping and we sat with skipper Pete for a general chat about the boat prep and how to look after stuff etc etc. Once our shoppers were back (later than expected because they couldn't find the peanut butter and jelly!) we sent out for pizza followed by a pint or two.
We had a fairly relaxed mother watch planned for the week as it was to be only one of us at a time with a helper and non of us had a full day, and we tried to follow our selection of menus to see about ease of preperation and taste and if it was to our general liking. Which they were - some more than others but all exceptable!
Due to the small crew and for us to get back into the workings of our boat Pete had us do daily sails and back into Gosport for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. The usual stuff of tacking, gybing, MOB, head sail changes, poled out headsail and the list goes on. We also got Donna up the mast while out in the Solent - last time I was involved with that we were in the calm waters of the marina - the water was calm but any deck movement is so exagerated when you are sat on the 3rd spreader taking some photos!
... Read more
Posted on 2009-07-02 15:54:36